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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29144319">Thou Art Favored</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlluringMary/pseuds/AlluringMary'>AlluringMary</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Child Death, Consent Issues, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, I mean he is the cult's leader so, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Parent-Child Relationship, Pregnancy, Reader-Insert, Threats of Violence, mentioned - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 12:02:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,092</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29144319</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlluringMary/pseuds/AlluringMary</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite your fear, none noticed it. Perhaps this obsession over it encouraged you to seek the doubt and awkwardness in Herald John's features when he held your child. Or the haunted and critical look Brother Jacob gave you after first seeing his niece, moments after the birth.</p><p>But you saw it, the subtle, frightened looks in his brothers, their tight smiles and cautious gestures.</p><p>But you saw it better in Joseph's.</p><p>//</p><p>Reader is pregnant with the Father's child, a quick look from the realization to a few months postpartum.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Deputy | Judge/Joseph Seed, Joseph Seed/Joseph Seed's Wife, Joseph Seed/Megan (Far Cry), Joseph Seed/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Thou Art Favored</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>tw// This story is told through the reader's POV but contains discussion of a child's death (Joseph's daughter) and the possibilty of another child being willfully hurt.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The child... you stare down at her in the early morning, in the rare moments you wake up before she does and shrieks and kick the air, rising up a storm to be fed. Her little chest rises and falls slowly, her mouth is slack in  her sleep, the slight dusting of hair atop her head shines under the yellowish glow of the night light.</p><p>She's a beauty, albeit one who smells like milk at all times of day and sports a wrinkled face. It's those times you prefer when the compound outside is silent that not one beast of burden, not one faithful dares make a sound and upset the quiet. Those special, after dusk before sunrise, moments when the creak of a floorboard can sound as loud as an explosion. Soon, the little one will fuss and wail for you to take notice but for now, you watch her sleep, leaning onto the raised oak rails.</p><p>Sometimes, when her face doesn't truss up like she's bitten into a lime, and the sun hits the side of her face at just the right angle, you can recognize traces of her father's face in hers. She looks like the Father, is what everyone, always unprompted, says. The back of their knuckles rove delicately over her forehead, the pad of their fingers over her plump cheeks and it's undeniable.</p><p>In the first week you'd learned of your pregnancy, you had been content, soothed almost. The age of reason had washed over you, it was a sign you were no longer left without a purpose, that the hand of God had deigned to stop over you. There was no fear to be had, only strength to embrace.</p><p>And yet, you had held back and joined your sisters in the kitchens when needed, prayed at the according times and joined with the Father when his need for you flared. Your betrayal tasted foul in your mouth and stayed stuck in your throat but you daren't say a thing.</p><p>In the next few weeks, God had learned of your deceitful nature and punishment hung over your head. When the Father's lips caressed your own and his tongue licked deep, you feared he would taste the bitter taste of deceit inside your mouth. That on the days he favored you above all others, his lips would come back stained with the evidence of your doubt and he be marked by God's wrath.</p><p>And so you had confessed, on your knees and head hung low, unworthy of meeting his gaze. Silence was rare on this part of the island but for a moment, the world was silent. The Father was, perhaps, pensive. Waiting for his judgment, you listened to the low sounds of beads from his rosary clicking against one another.</p><p>“Come forward,” The Father at last said, voice free of anger.</p><p>Ripe with shame, you had crawled to his parted thighs. His hand had settled over your head and cautiously pushed your cheek onto his offered thigh. The jeans felt strangely rough against your skin, his palm warm against your cheek. Only then had you noticed the uncontrollable shaking in your hands.</p><p>“Have you lost the child?” He asked, while the tips of his fingers trailed along your jaw.</p><p>“No, Father.”</p><p>“The child you bear, is it mine?”</p><p>“Yes, Father.”</p><p>A shiver coursed through you when his thumb traced the shell of your ear, his nail softly scratching the skin. “Is there reason to doubt?”</p><p>“No, Father.”</p><p>The Father hummed. “Rise, my child.” You did so despite the static in your head, your loud heartbeat crashing inside your chest. The Father's hands roamed softly over your clothes as you got to your feet, settling on your stomach. The beads of his rosary dragged across your bare skin when he tucked the fabric away.</p><p>“Open your eyes, look upon yourself.”</p><p>You do, but your stomach isn't full yet, there's no visible evidence of your union. The flat of his palm ran along it, a small serene smile drawn upon his lips. Shamefully, you took in the scene of his worship of you, took in his scent, a discreet smell with a tang of lime.</p><p>“Father... You are not angry? That I kept this from you?”</p><p>His eyes rose up to yours, the blue pupils appearing a cool green behind the yellow tint of his glasses.</p><p>“You have not lied, committed no sin.” A sudden chill ran through you when his gaze turned mournful, his shoulders losing their straight edge. “But I wonder why you would doubt my trust.”</p><p>You'd liked to consider yourself a friend of Megan, that the envy you bore towards her had been because of her singing voice, her easy reverberating laugh, the subtle but mystifying lines of her smile, that it wasn't due to the amorous gaze the Father turned to her or the dreamy roll of her tongue when she spoke his name--<em>Joseph, beloved Joesph.</em></p><p>Megan had been... she had been acting strange in the last few days you had seen her, since the day your new Faith had been introduced to you, since her cheeks had been tinted green in the early mornings and she grew faint in the kitchens.</p><p>You do not know what to say without your envy burning bright and strong before him but the Baptist has etched it into your skin and made you confess, washed the sin away.</p><p>“I was scared,” The half truth burns inside your throat but the Father does not turn a baleful gaze unto you, unable to sense the lie. “I don't want to join Herald John's Gate so soon.”</p><p>“You would be safe, cared for during your period of confinement. What is there to be afraid of?”</p><p>“I hope it's not lust, Father but... but I don't want to leave you now.”</p><p>He rose then and pulled you in for a kiss, chaste and unusually sweet. The Father gathered you close, sighed as his hands found your hips. He soothed and laid kisses over your face and neck, guided your lips to his with a nudge of his chin. He had leaned away from the kiss, a soft, candid expression on his face and spoken words that had made your heart tighten with elation, “Blessed that you are, you are favored, above one and all.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br/>
Rumors followed rapidly in the announcement's wake, like a flame burning its way along a drip of gasoline.</p><p>“He smothered her,” the teacher, flowers braided into her hair and guiding the children away to class said one day. “Our Father was so distraught, you understand, and she was so weak.”</p><p>A doctor, with gray burning away at her hair, laid a cold hand on your stomach, prodding away--“Broke her neck, the poor dear. It was the merciful thing to do.”</p><p>Once Rachel, now Faith hummed softly as she guided you into the Bliss flowers. “She didn't suffer, baseless violence is not the Father's way. She took her last breath while in his arms, loved and cherished.”</p><p>The wife that came before worried you, more so than Megan. While envy gripped you tight and brought forth unspeakable anger at not being the first, of not giving him your all before Megan, before his first wife--dread filled you to the brim at the thought of God addressing him as he had so many years ago and commending his prophet to enact his will once again.</p><p>This fear, though you hid it, burned a hole inside of you, one you believed to be blatant on the outside. Yet the sinners of Hope county congratulated you, the Faithful at your side praised you when in white you had given yourself away to him, vision tinted white and sparkles shining in the corner of your eyes.</p><p>Despite your fear, none noticed it. Perhaps this obsession over it encouraged you to seek the doubt and awkwardness in Herald John's features when he held your child. Or the haunted and critical look Brother Jacob gave you after first seeing his niece, moments after the birth.</p><p>But you saw it, the subtle, frightened looks in his brothers, their tight smiles and cautious gestures.</p><p>But you saw it better in Joseph's.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br/>
It's night by now, your daughter hadn't stirred yet but you couldn't find sleep. The exhaustion from the day should have left you dead to the world, yet you'd been moments shy of tossing and turning in sheer boredom.</p><p>A flex of fingers in the crook of your elbow had momentarily stalled you, but the hand had soon slid down, once more dead weight in his sleep. The sheets rustled under your shifting weight, the small noise sounds grating and bombastic in the dead of the night and so did the answering sigh from Joseph.</p><p>He called your name in a sleep-roughened voice, seeking you in the low light. Meek reassurances had been enough to ease back into sleep, or so you'd thought.</p><p>You've no idea what time it is but you've been up for hours, dawn will rise soon judging by the yellowing light in the room. Your own doubt, your paranoia makes you stand over her, guarding, waiting for what Megan feared.</p><p>He stood by the door, silent and observing, shoulders relaxed but gaze alert. You hadn't heard him, hadn't seen him before he called to you, “You've not come back to bed.” The sleepy scratch in his voice catches onto his Georgian rounded vowels, hangs onto his voice when he lays a kiss on your cheek. “You should rest, she will not wake for some time.”</p><p>
  <em>Brother Jacob had held her for mere minutes and then handed her to John. He had watched with narrowed eyes while the Herald and the Father talked in hushed tones over her and turned to you. “She'll be safe.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Bliss-numbed but worry-high, you'd smiled demurely, “This is the Will of the Father.”</em>
</p><p>“I know, but I worry.” The truth nowadays is cut short, one word shy of a lie.</p><p>“You must find peace and rest easy in what God has gifted us.” You can feel his heat lined along your back as he presses close, nudges your head to the side to press a kiss to your temple. “Let not your heart be troubled, neither be afraid. He watches over her.”</p><p>How many, you wonder, long to be held this way in the arms of the Father? But the heat of his body feels ominous, the same feeling of dread waiting for a wild animal to pounce fills you whole. Your fingers flex on his arms where they rest around your waist.</p><p>You almost tell him to head back to bed but the words remain stuck in your throat when his arms untangle from around you. Not that you want him to hold you, but because of the lone, gentle finger he trails across your daughter's cheek while he leans over the crib.</p><p>His hand runs along your back and cups your shoulder, silently you lean into him and let your head rest onto his collarbone. You both gaze down at the precious child, him with a beatific smile and the murmur of a song on his tongue and you, weary, with dread coiling inside you.</p><p>
  <em>Brother John had spent more time with your daughter than either Sister Faith of Herald Jacob, insisting on feeding and waiting on her in the first few weeks. Joseph had smiled, understanding, “My brothers have longed for a family the moment we were separated, our reunion only sharpened John's need for one of his own.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>At his ranch, after having fed her a bottle and laid her down to sleep, the Baptist had turned a scrutinizing eye onto you. In this moment you'd felt the dig of his knife in your chest, the carving of ENVY into your skin for a second time. But then and there he'd spoken softly, “The Project will ensure her safety.”</em>
</p><p>Into your ear, Joseph murmurs again, “He watches over her.”</p><p>“Are you sure who exactly does?” is so traitorous a thought that it burns where it lays on your tongue. You do not speak it and for now, enjoy the feeling of his touch, so unused before were you of his affections and care. You lay back into him and when you look at your daughter, the anxiety that clenches you tight is eased, only by the Herald's soothing words.</p><p>Favored you are, those feelings keep you grounded. Blessed you are, you pray they will be enough to keep her safe.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Now, as much as I genuinely blame Ubisoft for FC5, FCND and the Megan's wonky timelines, I had issues with her character. I couldn't believe Joseph 'no fornicating' Seed would have a relationship with one (or mutiple) people despite his involvement in the cult.</p><p>But really, I think Megan did the smart thing--leaving and all because I truly believe that if Joseph knew he fathered a child with someone from PEG, he'd make it all go away. But I grew soft and turned this much darker fic into something more hopeful with some hints of helpful Jacob and John because I do like a good ending once in a while.</p><p>Hope you enjoyed reading, stay safe!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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